Ideas for USA.gov

Marti Hearst

USA.gov & Web Best Practices Team MeetingJuly 29, 2009

Why am I talking about this?

1. These are my teaching/research areas.

2. Success for USAsearch.gov critically depends on the content of USA.gov.

Three Main Topics

What is/are the goals of USA.gov?

Content at USA.gov.

Faceted metadata for USA.gov

What is/are USA.gov’s goals? “Government Made Easy”?

Implies services, activity, findability “How do I” functionality

Curation? Best of the government web Easily navigable

Comprehensive Information? All government libraries All cities’ web sites

A Centralized Digital Library? All government news feeds All government reports

My focus here

Content is Key If there is no good page for a query,

then Search fails.

Currently, how searchusa helps fill in the gaps: Spotlights FAQs

Should USA.gov fill in those gaps?

Fill in the gap: 1040

Fill in the gap: 1099

How to fill in content gaps Make the answers for the FAQs

available as html pages on USA.gov

How to fill in content gaps Make the answers for the FAQs

available as html pages on USA.gov

Perhaps write explanatory content pages for common query types.

Example: 1099 query on major search engines brings up nice explanation from wiseGeek

How to fill in content gaps Make the answers for the FAQs

available as html pages on USA.gov

Perhaps write explanatory content pages for common query types. Maybe USA.gov pages should be more like FAQ

answer pages, more like Wikipedia pages

Wikipedia: an authorative page, written in a narrative style, on a topic, with related links.

How to fill in content gaps Make the answers for the FAQs

available as html pages on USA.gov Perhaps write explanatory content

pages for common query types. Perhaps have a community help fill in

the gaps Example: business.gov has an active

community. Helps with locality-based questions Uses everyday language; aids query matching Many people like the human touch

Three Main Topics

What is/are the goals of USA.gov?

Content at USA.gov.

Faceted metadata for USA.gov: Can improve navigation, search, and an

advanced “how do I” support system.

Faceted Categories vs. Hierarchies

Stickers vs. Folders

vs

Example: Medicare Prescription Drug Plan Scam

If you have folders, have to place the item into multiple folders:

Health

Elderly

Drugs

Fraud

Safety

At USA.gov Unlike many hierarchical directories,

USA.gov does a good job of placing items into multiple folders.

However, this is likely to lead to: Inconsistency Disorganized lists of items

Example: Food Safety Currently on USA.gov, how do you

navigate to www.foodsafety.gov ?

Family, Home, Community > Family Issues > Alphabetical list of ~80 links

Health and Nutrition > Food, Nutrition, & Fitness > Alphabetical list of ~30 links

Public Safety & Law > Personal & Public Safety > Consumer Protection > Consumer Protection A-Z > … food safety, but not the target site.

Example: Teen info Has subcategories:

Driving Education Environmental Consciousness Health and Safety Internet and Mobile Jobs and Volunteering Money Travel and Recreation

These are needed for most other kinds of people too …

… so make these standard categories and show the teen category whenever you

are at one of these other topic types.

Alternative: assign stickers to the item:Medicare Prescription Drug Plan Scam

Assign categories to the item, rather than put the item into categories

Health

Safety

Elderly

Drugs

Scams

Physicians

Faceted Navigation:Bringing it Together User can start with any category, and see

the results grouped by the other categories.

Example: Start with Health

See results grouped by subcategories of Health, such as Drugs, Nutrition

Alternatively, user can group results by other categories: Click on Financial, see Insurance, Payments, etc Click on Teens, see results relevant to teens

Examples of Faceted Layouts

Examples of Faceted Layouts

Another Advantage:Create Question/Answer Types “How do I get a driver’s license in Indiana?” Convert it to these facets:

Vehicle > Operation + Official Document > License + State > Indiana

Can be useful for call centers too Can also show facets not present in the

question; user can select these to refine: Age > Teen Rural

Summary:Three Main Topics

What is/are the goals of USA.gov? If curation and navigability, see the ideas below!

Ideas for content at USA.gov Put Answers into web pages Write wikipedia-style content pages to fill gaps Use search’s query/web log analysis to identify gaps Maybe consider community conversation?

Faceted metadata for USA.gov: Can improve navigation, search, and an advanced “how

do I” support system. Should be done instead of a hierarchical directory.

Thank you!